


The Rituals of R. J. Lupin

by journeytogallifrey



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marauders' Era, Mental Health Issues, OCD!Remus, OCD!character, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Potentially triggering, mild gore mention, probably a touch of PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 02:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2490764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/journeytogallifrey/pseuds/journeytogallifrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts out simple. /Maybe if I always start with the middle button/, he thinks, it won't be so bad tonight. /Maybe if I close my trunk all the way I'll get a few more minutes to be human./<br/>But then it grows, this strange insidious thing deep down, until it whispers, /Shut off the light or Peter will die. Rehang the towels or Sirius will fall ill./<br/>It goes to all of them. Sirius. Peter. James. Lily. Sirius. Sirius. Sirius.</p>
<p>Remus Lupin has OCD, and it may help with making the Map but he would trade it for absolutely anything in the world because when he is up nights scrubbing and fighting the images behind his eyes, he does not know the name for what he is, and does he really have to be crazy /and/ a werewolf /and/ in love with James's best friend?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rituals of R. J. Lupin

**Author's Note:**

> I have OCD, and one day this headcanon sort of smacked me upside the head and would not leave me alone until I wrote it. So, here you go! OCD!Rem and a Sirius who knows exactly what to do.
> 
> (One day I may expand this into a more normal fic with, like, plot and suspense and romance and stuff. We'll see.)

It starts out simple. _Maybe if I always start with the middle button,_ he thinks, _it won't be so bad tonight. Maybe if I close my trunk all the way I'll get a few more minutes to be human._

But then it grows, this strange insidious thing deep down, until it whispers, _Shut off the light or Peter will die. Rehang the towels or Sirius will fall ill._

It goes to all of them. Sirius. Peter. James. Lily. Sirius. Sirius. Sirius.

 _Maybe,_ says the voice inside one day, _maybe if you do everything just right, these thoughts about Sirius will go away._

But they stay there, in the bright daylight. And they're not the same as the other thoughts that plague him, of blood and of screaming and of pushing people off the staircases, thoughts he would never mean but that will never go away. No, Remus's thoughts about Sirius are light and warm, and it is always Sirius's voice and Sirius's face and Sirius's touch that pull him back from the bad times.

It is the classes he has alone that are the worst. Arithmancy, Advanced Charms - with none of his friends around, he can't shake that little voice in his head that nags him to remove every speck of dust on his desk and line up his quills just right, the images in his head of the school burning or of _what if I shoved this quill into her eye, just_ there, although of course he would never _do_ it, would never _mean_ it, is disgusted at that part of himself that says it, so different from the wolf and yet so similarly hated.

And so he ducks his head down low and apologizes extra-thoroughly because he has to smile just right or James will die, and can't that Hufflepuff girl read his mind as he imagines jumping at her and snapping her neck?

He doesn't have a word for it, because it's not the wolf. The wolf, he knows. This, this is frightening and new, and he never had it before the day that he nearly-

The day that Severus nearly died.

 _Do everything just right,_ Remus thinks, _and the wolf will not kill tonight._

After school ends, it gets easier. Remus learns and grows and finds a name for his disorder, and once it can be named (obsessive-compulsive, the Muggle doctors say), it can be compartmentalized. He finds ways to ignore the voice and minimize the routines, ways to still the frantic churning inside his head and focus his efforts on the war. He takes the smallest victories. He finds it easy, suddenly, to eat a bar of chocolate without breaking it up and arranging the squares, and that becomes his comfort when all the other rituals will not go away.

He has an apartment with Sirius now. And there have been many kisses since that first rushed kiss, and many embraces since that first embrace. Sirius carefully avoids messing up the order of the bottles in the bathroom and buys unscented soap and waits patiently by the door to leave while Rem checks five times whether he’s left the oven on, and when Remus washes his hands for the tenth time in a night because he Cannot Get Them Clean...

Sirius rises from their bed and stands in the doorway to the bathroom and speaks of far-away things, distracting him without ever trying to force him to stop, and when Remus says “I know it’s silly to carry on like this, to think such bad things could happen,” Sirius says “It’s not silly, love, it’s _you_ ,” and holds him while he cries.


End file.
